Germany's nuclear power

A policy of denial

The nuclear lobby warms to a changing future in the energy world

STEPHAN KOHLER climbs mountains and used to assess the safety of nuclear power plants. Now he is chief executive of DENA, a government agency to promote energy efficiency. Nothing can persuade him that nuclear power is an acceptable risk—unlike mountain-climbing, which, he says, puts only his life in danger.

AFPThought embargo?

Mr Kohler is not alone. Millions of Germans want to end their exposure to atomic power, hence the agreement back in June 2000 by the main political parties and the nuclear industry to shorten the life of the country's 17 plants and shut them all down by around 2020. In November 2005 that timetable was confirmed by the new government's coalition agreement.

But the world has changed. Amid the political games being played by Russia and its neighbours, Germany's oil and gas supplies appear less secure. And as the current president of the European Union and the G8, Germany is trying to provide leadership in the new war against CO2 emissions. It wants to reduce greenhouse-gas emissions to 40% below 1990 levels by 2020. Key to the energy plan, besides more wind farms and solar panels, and less leaky buildings, is the development of clean coal-fired power plants. But the technology is in its infancy. Two pilot plants will not be ready before 2014.

One answer: stretch the average life of nuclear plants, which are emission-free, from the agreed 32 years to a scientifically acceptable 40 (in America their life is already being stretched to 60 years). Then there would be time to develop better clean and renewable technology. “The disadvantages are hard to see,” says Manuel Frondel at RWI, a research group. “Even if we shut down all our atom plants we would probably import nuclear power from France or central Europe: that would be pushing the problem to the west and east. We still haven't found more than interim solutions for storing nuclear waste, but that quest is not insoluble, and it is not exacerbated by continuing to run plants.”

A timely piece of research by Deutsche Bank boldly states that phasing out nuclear power plants “is not a viable policy option.” Instead it recommends stretching their life to 60 years and taxing the windfall profits to subsidise clean coal plants, which could not otherwise compete with gas-fired alternatives. So confident is Deutsche Bank that this government, or the next, will have to revise its nuclear policy, that it assumes the change in its forecasts for the share prices of RWE and E.ON, Germany's two biggest nuclear operators.

The power companies have started manoeuvring. In December, RWE and EnBW, another German nuclear operator, each made applications, under the terms of the 2000 agreement, to shift capacity from a younger nuclear plant to one that is older. Both argue that this will allow them to operate and phase out two side-by-side plants—one old, one newer—in harmony, and it will buy them time to develop alternative technologies. “This is not just cosmetic pre-election tactics,” says Utz Claassen, chief executive of EnBW.

But Mr Claassen—not known for his political naivety—is aware that 2009 will bring new federal elections and the end of the coalition agreement. Unless the lives of his and RWE's oldest plants are reprieved by a capacity shift, then that is about the time they will have to be shut down. A Deutsche Bank-style extension to 60 years would allow the veteran plants to purr on beyond 2030.

The nuclear lobby is being very careful, but “there should be no Denkverbot [thought embargo]”, says Bernd Arts of the Atomforum in Berlin. Chancellor Angela Merkel herself is displaying symptoms of schizophrenia on the subject: “I stick to the coalition agreement,” she told the Sunday Bild newspaper on February 4th. “But whoever wants to get out of nuclear energy must find some serious answers to meeting environmental targets. Renewable energy cannot be a complete answer by 2020.”